Why Is Love So Complicated?

I woke up and took a long hot shower. I ran out of the bathroom in a towel, and went to go decide what I was wearing today. Better find something black to fit in….

I literally didn’t have anything gothic. It took me five minutes to finally find this black shirt that said, “Love,” on it, each letter a different color. It’ll have to work, I thought, as I put it on and found a pair of jeans. I wondered how my mom would ask for me asking for a shopping spree. Well, I’ll check up on that over the weekend.

I went into the kitchen to find my mom making eggs. I helped myself to a plateful. “So you’re dropping me off soon, right?” I asked, shoveling the eggs down. I was a pig sometimes.

“Yeah, let me get some shoes on,” she said, turning off the stove. I scarfed the rest of my eggs down, then went to put mine on too, grabbing my backpack as I headed out the door.

We drove in silence to the school, where I hopped out and told her bye. “Call me if you need me,” she said.

I went to my locker, to find Killer standing by it again, smiling happily. “I got a lock,” she said, showing me.

“That’s great!” I said, getting my stuff for the morning classes. Drat, I had forgotten to get coffee… oh well.

“Yeah, that should help for a while. So are you still up for after school?” she asked.

“Of course. What are we going to be doing?” I asked

“I thought we could head over to my house for a while…” she said.

She wants me to go to her house? Okay… sure. “Okay. I’ll you later then,” I said, heading off for my first period.

My classes went by in a breeze, and lunch was fun. The only difference was my German class; Killer had went to go sit by me. I waited at my locker after school for her.

She showed up not too long after. “Ready to go?” she said, smiling. I love her smile.

“Yeah,” I said, grabbing my bag.

We walked out to her car. “So how has you day been?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

“It was okay. No rude comments,” she said absent mindedly, climbing into the car. She caught sight of my face, and added quickly, “but I was not really paying attention to the day, I was thinking more of hanging out with you.”

“Oh,” I said with a smile creeping over my face.

“Yeah… so you don’t mind just eat something at my house, do you?” she asked, as we left the parking lot.

“No, that’s fine,” I said. I was hoping there wouldn’t be any meat there….

We drove to her house in a slightly awkward silence. She drove up to the curb and got out. “Are you getting out?” she asked with a puzzled look, when I didn’t open the door.

“Oh!! Yeah, sorry, I was spacing out,” I told her, quickly jumping out of the car like it was on fire. She laughed at me, and locked it. We walked inside to find her dad, sitting on the couch.

“Hi, Dad!” she said cheerfully, barely stopping to give him a quick hug and go to her room. I didn’t want to just stand there looking awkward, so I followed. Her room was almost completely black, except for her bed spread that looked like it was supposed to be a shade of red resembling blood. Nice.

“So, uh… this is your room,” I said lamely.

“Yeah,” she said smiling. “It’s… black, isn’t it?” We both burst out laughing. “I did it to piss off my mom… she ended up not caring. Then I found out that I really liked black… So you want some food?” she said, turning out of her room towards what I assumed was the kitchen.

“Sure,” I said, not knowing if she actually heard me. I followed her out. Her kitchen was nice. Better than ours, anyway. Everything was shiney and… chrome.

“We just got it remodeled,” she said, catching my look. “It looked like crap before… want a banana?”

I gave her a startled bewildered look, before I saw she was holding a bunch of bananas. “Oh… sure,” I said, grabbing one. She sat the rest down, and grabbed a Dr. Pepper from the fridge. My favorite. She tossed me one, then grabbed one for her before heading back for her room.

“So… what to talk about,” she said, while peeling her banana and plopping on her bed. “Why did you move here?” she asked, laying on her stomach looking up at me.

“Um… well, my parents just split up,” I said, taking a seat near the foot of the bed, and sat Indian-style. “I didn’t want to live with my dad, because he’s either an ass, or just ignores me. My mom didn’t get that much money, but we’re getting along okay. She’s waitressing while she looks for a better job. We decided to move here because she grew up in a town near here. I didn’t really mind it. I mean, this school is smaller than my old one, but you know,” I said, taking a bite of my banana.

“Oh,” she said surprised. “I’m sorry… that sucks. Well have you been enjoying your stay here?”

“Yeah… well, I really wouldn’t call it a stay. We’re already buying a house at the edge of town. It’s kinda small, but it’s not like we need it big, there’s only the two of us,” I said, popping open the Dr. Pepper and taking a drink. “So how long have you been living here?”

“Oh, my whole life. We’ve always lived in this house. It’s a pretty nice town… when they don’t know you’re gay…” her gaze turned dark for a second, but then brightened back up. “But there’s some really nice people here. I’ve always enjoyed it. Like there’s this nice convenience store cler-” she stopped suddenly.

I looked up to see why, and saw the cause. A little girl of about 12 or 13 had walked into the room. She looked a lot like Killer. “Hey, Mom wants to know who you have in here,” she says in a slight know-it-all voice.

“A friend I met from school,” she said in a sickly sweet voice. “She’s pretty nice. Now leave my room before I strangle you,” she said in the exact same voice.

The little girl laughed and came in, shutting the door behind her. “Mom’s sitting in the kitchen. I’ll tell her you aren’t doing anything,” she said. To my surprise, Killer smiled.

“Thanks, love. So how was your day?” she said, making room for her to sit down.

“It was okay. That boy with the homophobe brother was teasing me again, but I put him in a headlock like you showed me. He almost started crying,” she said, laughing.

“Ha! I knew that would work. Tell me if you have any more trouble,” she said, then finally noticed the puzzled look on my face. “Oh. This is my little sister, Jessie. She’s cool,” she said, ruffling her hair.

“Stop it!” she said, grabbing her hand. She turned to me. “So who are you? Shelly’s new girlfriend?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. I was stunned.

“Jessie!! No, we aren’t dating. She just moved into town. And you know I hate that name!!” she said rather quickly.

Jessie laughed again. “Okay. I better go, before Mom starts wondering. I’ll just tell her that you were making friends with a lonely girl, sound cool?” she said, as she got up.

“Yeah, that’s great,” she said. Jessie opened the door, then Killer suddenly shouted, “And stay out!!” Jessie closed the door behind her. She caught my puzzled look again. “Oh, we usually pretend we aren’t that close… it keeps Mom off my case. She just sends Jessie to go check up on me.”

“Oh,” I said, not really understanding a word she just said.

“So when does your mom want you back? Because the guys were wanting to hang out with you later. Probably around 5:30,” she said, glancing at her alarm clock. It was 5:05. “Which probably means we should leave soon. Are you interested?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure sounds fun. My mom said she doesn’t care when I get home.” Okay, not total lie. I need to stop saying huh… and uh.

“Cool. Guess we better go before my mom starts questioning us,” she said, grabbing my empty can and hers, throwing it in her trash. She opened the door, then motioned for me to get up and walk out.

She made a dash for the front door, so I just quickly followed. She waved to her dad again as we walked out, and slammed the door behind her. Here we went again for another awkward silent car ride…